


a wheel, ever-turning

by noah_pascal



Series: Dreaming back thru life [3]
Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot Collection, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2020-04-07 12:03:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19084648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noah_pascal/pseuds/noah_pascal
Summary: beginnings and endings, our turning points, and the struggles against fate in between[retitled a work; the jeff/vin ficlongingis in here under "Nine of Swords"]





	1. Nine of Swords

**Author's Note:**

> This work is now for collecting tarot-inspired, interconnected one-shots. Chapter titles should be taken with a grain of salt because, as in all matters, I'm still learning.
> 
> Not fact, advice, or instruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess the nicer word for these is vignettes? At least they're chronological
> 
> Contents Include: trans Vin and Jeff loving each other as best they can, an unexplored "not that great" relationship with parents, alcohol, penetrative sex, face-sitting, genitalia referred to as cock and clit, incredibly vague menstruation talk, a snapshot of :D torture, bodily fluids, mental health issues, closeted character, brief mention of calories

On New Year’s Eve, Jeff finds a bottle that his parents had been saving for a special occasion tipped on its side in his kitchen pantry. Dusty with no fingerprints. Vintage.

At fifteen till, he pours sour champagne into huge plastic cups that they take outside and toss back on the deck, cold be damned.

And at midnight, Vinny cups his face and presses their lips together.

 

Vinny sleeps later and deeper than he does, curled up under stacks of thick blankets on Jeff’s bed. When Jeff leaves for the bathroom, he has the absolute nerve to turn Jeff into so much mush, reaching out for his warm spot and tugging Jeff’s pillow under his arm.

A few vinegary kisses under the fireworks and gunshots might be forgotten in the morning, left behind like the boy in his bed. Instead, he pours orange juice into his empty, sticky cup so he can remember just how sweet those kisses were last night.

He crawls into bed again as Vin is waking up, squinting at first, then the corners of his eyes crinkle as he recognizes where he is. Jeff’s considering what the best future for them would look like—one where he’d see crow’s feet every morning and night—as Vin reaches for him and urges him closer, rubbing at Jeff’s skin through the thick fabric of his sweatshirt.

They could fuck. Right now. If Jeff leans in with the right look on his face, he could recreate last night in reverse, sun for moon, silence in place of commotion, and send them down the path of another tumble that they’ll step around the next time they hang out.

Jeff decides to leave a popping, puckered kiss on his cheek, affecting the most neutral face he can manage with a gorgeous man in his bed. “Are we being serious this time?” 

He waits before elaborating, gauging Vin’s reaction to the suggestion. Is this going be another fumble between the sheets when they’re low? A rehash of Vin crying on Jeff’s shoulder because he knew how it felt to lose. Or of Jeff begging for touch so he could stop feeling like a corpse.

“Is this more than New Year’s?” he prompts, holding Vin’s jaw in his hand, after getting a soft look instead of scared. More than drunk in the moonlight is left unsaid. More than lonely during the holidays, assumed. More than, but always encompassing, the memory of the backseat of Jeff’s dad’s car, when they’d just cut their hair short and, desperate for a little validation, every _oh, man_ and exhaled name were like gold.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I want.” Jeff goes paranoid, thinking he’s agreeing in the intensity of the moment, that he’ll just get anxious about being seen and leave. Again. But he looks so earnest lying rumpled in bed, open and unguarded with his glasses off. Jeff’s emotional state is long past mush, has shot past goo, and is just plain _fucked_ as Vin lifts Jeff’s hand from his face and holds it against his chest, asking, “Can we give it one more shot?”

Jeff doesn’t know what comes over him. He straddles Vin’s waist and slams his hands on either side of his head, kissing him hard enough that Vin makes a choked off whimper. Vin’s noises turn to whines and gasps, and Jeff still doesn’t let up because if does, even for a second, he’s sure he’ll bite a bruise into Vin’s neck that he won’t be able to hide.

 

Jeff’s never cared much about his appearance, aside from the capital-I-important stuff. This used to mean he’d wear whatever was clean and whatever he liked. Fashion trends could take a hike. The beanies were staying. Converse go with everything.

Lately, it’s meant the same sweatshirts until there was a stain too big to ignore. It’s meant hats instead of clean hair and the bare minimum because even that’s almost too much.

Vinny’s never let that stop him. He’s seen Jeff covered in snot and three days into the same pair of underpants and told him he was doing his best. There were times Jeff was little more than stale sweat and tears wrapped in a hoodie, and Vin still asked to hold him. _When you’re ready_ was a mantra for everything. Laundry, showers, eating, the brushing of hair and teeth. And when they outwaited whatever was making Jeff sleep the day away, Vin would turn on a smile so bright and, lately, try to playfully pull him away from whatever he’d just accomplished. Like choking down cold pizza made him the most attractive catch in the world.

He figures, if given the choice, his boyfriend would rather see him clean…ish. Clothing optional. Hair needn’t be neat.

He _means_ , he probably looks half decent for the first time this week, stripped bare and turning his curls into knots as they drag against the pillow, and Vin isn’t able to fully appreciate it with his face pressed into Jeff’s collarbone, rocking his hips between Jeff’s spread thighs.

And as nice as it is to have his mouth worrying skin, sucking kisses into his chest, leaving an external sting to accompany the fullness inside, he wants to see his face. He wants to see it when he comes undone.

He winds his fingers into Vin’s hair and tugs him away. Vinny’s all blush and wandering hands as Jeff hauls him back, petting at his thighs, ribs, chest, waiting for Jeff’s direction. As Jeff raises himself closer, Vin’s hands pause, holding the crooks of Jeff’s knees, keeping him steady so he can bend in for a kiss. 

He hadn’t planned on the angle changing the way Vin’s strap-on presses in him, and he ends up moaning, “I want—” into his mouth. 

Vin stops moving, but doesn’t ease the pressure, leans into it as Jeff’s toes twitch and curl behind Vin’s back. 

He’s on the verge of overstimulated, mouth hanging open, and with no further explanation forthcoming, Vin’s brings his fingers to circle the base of his clit. 

Jeff’s hands fall slack from his hair, and his whole body crashes back to the bed as Vin’s eyes drift to his spread legs, fingers working in circles, sending him higher and higher.

“I want to see you,” he begs, reaching out for Vin’s face.

Vin lifts his eyes and tips himself close again, thrusting fast and shallow, until Jeff is the one shaking apart.

 

The trail’s muddy, but it’s worth it to have Vin hold his hand. When it’s only branches that can see them, bare and filtering the sunlight over them, affection pours out of him.

It’s chilly in the early morning, but they slip their hands from their pockets and reach for each other, Vin wrapping his fingers over Jeff’s and Jeff holding on tight.

The breeze forces them to pull their collars over their noses, too foolish to remember scarves, and huddling out of the wind in the quiet of the walled garden, they trade kisses as the sun climbs higher.

 

The better part of the day is gone, bordering closer to night, when Jeff leaves his bed and lumbers downstairs in his sweatpants to find Vinny angrily mopping a kitchen whose sink and trashcan are empty. With his face red and splotchy, wiping at his eyes as often as he swipes over the floor.

Jeff approaches slowly and takes the mop out of Vin’s hands, saying nothing.

“Why am I not good enough?” he asks.

Setting it against the wall, Jeff faces him as Vin gestures incomprehension, suddenly angry without anything to focus him. “If they couldn’t handle a kid like me, why did they—”

He brings him into his arms, and he almost misses Vinny’s whispers. With his mouth pressed into the skin of his shoulder, teeth bared, he apologizes, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but sometimes, I hate—I wish they’d never bothered—” never quite managing an explanation.

Jeff leads him upstairs and into his room, so he can attempt to get the whole story out of him. He’ll never hear what happened if his parents’ ghosts are hung around the rooms, haunting them, stirring up Vinny’s guilt for not fervently appreciating his parents and stoking any smoldering resentment Jeff might have about that.

 

Alex announces he’s going out, hunched over and jogging to the door, keys jingling the whole way. Jeff looks sluggishly up from the couch and doesn’t acknowledge him past an equally sluggish wave before turning back to Vin and all his shopping bags.

Al must have warned Vinny at some point because when Vin showed up, it was with several thousand calories of junk food and an entire pharmacy stashed beneath the takeout boxes.

“I’m gonna say my piece, and then I won’t bring it up for the rest of the weekend,” he promises after the door clicks shut, drooping his shoulders and holding plastic bags in each hand. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this on top of everything else, and they will figure out what’s going wrong, but you have to keep going and doing shitty blood tests so they _can_ figure it out.” The sacks get transferred into one hand, and holding out the other, he wiggles his fingers at Jeff, still lying on the couch, if less anguished and more bemused than before.

Jeff lazily reaches for it and allows Vin to pull him up, chiding, “Don’t lie. I know you’ll repeat yourself in a couple hours.”

“Maybe.” He smiles and lets go of Jeff’s hand to dig through whatever he bought at the drugstore, then tears into the packaging of a disposable heating pad before passing it over. “If I know you’re wearing this, maybe I won’t repeat it so much.”

“How are you the best and yet also the worst?”

“Cruel fate,” he supplies.

 

Vinny and Alex don’t show up for the start of Jessie’s funeral. Vinny and Alex haven’t shown up towards the end. They’re left twisting their heads this way and that, looking over their shoulders, hoping they’ll sneak in late. But they don’t, and he’s stuck stiff-necked next to Steph who sways on her feet, seeming close to fainting, and Evan who looks like he’s ready to howl, won’t stop scratching at his shirt.

Vinny doesn’t do this. He—that’s not like him. Okay, he’s broken promises before, but not—he’s never disappeared. _He’s_ never walked out of the house and without saying anything, never left people to wonder if he was coming back. Jeff lowers his head and covers his mouth. How much longer is this gonna go on? 

And how many more people can he possibly lose?

 

After his parents go to bed, they sneak out of the basement and cram themselves onto Vin’s tiny mattress, intending to curl up and stay close for as long as possible. That’s all he could think to want after the shock wore off and he got some food in him, after grim acceptance had him firmly in its clutches, yanking Vinny’s sleeve when they were out of earshot and asking, _Can we find somewhere to close our eyes and doze to a worn-out movie while the night drags on?_

They make it to Vin’s room without being heard, and they set the movie to play, but their restful moment turns into Jeff clinging to Vin, crying into his hoodie.

“I know I shouldn’t ask for this, but it’s—I need them to see what I saw. I need to know I’m not losing my mind.”

Jeff doesn’t have it in him to turn to stone again. All he has is a fucking flood running out of him at the idea that the video he hasn’t been able to contemplate would go up for the world to see. He can’t deal with the thought of every shithead coming out of the woodwork to turn to them and cry _fake_ over the gaping wound where Jeff’s brother used to be, not when the police won’t _allow_ him to make a report. What he needs is to be numb for a while—a long while, but he’s being scraped raw instead.

He has the sudden, terrible sensation of sinking into quicksand fast enough there’s no chance of backing out, while Vinny says, “I’m sorry. I’m so stupid. I should’ve never brought it up.”

He tells Jeff he made a mistake, that he’ll never mention it again. No matter what he says trying to fix this, Jeff can’t stop crying, going on for so long he’s sure he’s soaked through Vin’s shirt all the way to skin, and he could _still_ dredge up tears. It’s only through force of will that he ends the flow.

Vinny nudges him after he quiets. “You need—I want you to be comfortable, at least. Do you want me to take the couch?”

Jeff is seized by desperate fear and crushing loneliness, and he digs his nails into Vin’s back. Vin stays put, apologizing again, trying to explain what’s going wrong in his head, and Jeff is filled with the conviction that there’s nothing he could have done that would have kept Vinny from leaving if he hadn’t really wanted to stay.

 

He’s not graceful as is, but having to waddle on his knees around the piles of laundry on his bed makes him feel like he’s a lot less desirable than he would be otherwise.

But Vinny looking at him like he’s sex on, admittedly, wobbly legs is doing wonders to counteract that.

“Sure?” Jeff asks, poised over Vin’s chest, hovering there until he gets confirmation.

“I can take whatever you can dish out,” he says as he massages Jeff’s thighs and runs his thumbs up the folds between them, parting and playing, and the anticipation is doing just as much for him as Vinny’s hands and glances.

“Okay, man, whatever you say.” He plucks the glasses from Vin’s face, and as soon as he sets them on the bedside table, Vin jerks on his hips.

Jeff stumbles forward, positioned over Vin’s mouth. He starts to say, “You could use your words,” but Vin breathes out, and the air flowing over him has him tipping and bending to twist his hands in the sheets and clothes.

His tongue starts easy, gliding over skin, getting him to relax and settle firmly above Vin’s mouth, working in broad strokes that open him up and feed the ache in his cock.

Vinny looks blissed-out lying beneath him, eyes closed, lips open, and starting to lap at his clit, sending Jeff arching his back and pressing down harder.

There’s something about watching Vin slip in to eager-to-please and having him crane his neck to chase after Jeff’s skin. Seeing the wetness spread over his face from a higher angle is fueling the want in him, and he bites at his bottom lip, small groans spilling out.

Jeff’s knees are trembling as Vin begins to suck, and he digs for the concentration to reposition himself. Sitting up, he balances with one hand gripping the headboard, the other on Vinny’s head, encouraging him to go faster, tugging at his hair. As expected, his hair-pulling starts a feedback loop between them, Jeff’s hold getting tighter as Vinny’s pleased sounds vibrate up his spine.

The next jolt of his hips against Vin’s face has his tongue pressing hard in just the right spot to have Jeff frantically trying to hold him still and rocking against the pressure, the tension in him snapping, and he rides out his orgasm in slowing thrusts on Vinny’s mouth.

In his afterglow, he flops hard to the bed and clutches at a flushed and panting Vin, drawing their bodies close, snaking a hand down to cup him through his boxers.

Vinny’s surprised grunt echoes in the room, and Jeff fits their mouths together, muffling his enthusiastic noises.

Not that he needs to. There’s no one around to complain.

 

They tried and tried. And kept trying. And it’s not enough. And it needs to be over.

But when someone makes you feel like you could take on the world, you’ll do nearly anything you can for them.

And in the excitement of the moment…well. It’s just a little favor, after all.

 

“You think you could bury the hatchet after this?” The madman twirls the knife in his hand, staring at his canvas. 

“Not that you can, but you know, with Vinny,” he clarifies, gesturing with jerks of his arms and wrists. “Him sending you off because he couldn’t put the camera down for five minutes?”

When he doesn’t answer, he kneels to Jeff’s level, pinching a lock of hair and pulling it straight. “How did it feel,” he asks, bringing the knife up, severing the curl from Jeff’s head, “to love someone whose priority was never you?”

Drool drips out of his mouth and blood tracks down the side of his face as he looks up and answers with a garbled, “Still love him.”

“Of course you do.” Laughing, he stands and kicks Jeff in the ribs, sending him sprawled and groaning against the floorboards. “That just makes it harder to forgive them.”


	2. Five of Swords, Reversed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aftermath relating to the 22 July 1995 letter, in drabble form

It’s an evening of delicate maneuvering before James relaxes enough to get near Adam. In tearful apologies and quiet reassurances that _of course no one meant to hurt anyone_ , they mend. I know the punch wasn’t intentional. I should have warned you. I didn’t mean to be cruel.

_Sorry's_ are traded in the neutral territory of a diner, then over the car’s console, finally running dry as Adam coaxes James across the cushions of his couch.

“Why are things always so difficult for us?” Adam asks into James’s parted lips.

James, subdued, fills Adam’s mouth with soft gasps in reply.


	3. Judgement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wish fulfillment looks different for everyone i suppose
> 
> so much of this happened because of [notbecauseofvictories’s story of Judas and Peter](https://notbecauseofvictories.tumblr.com/post/127443029500/where-judas-and-peter-meet-at-the-end-of-the), with some motivation from listening to [Phoebe Bridgers's cover of Two-Headed Boy (Part 2)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv02JLDB97A) for a week straight
> 
> Habit-centric, so warnings for Habit being Habit, ft. crude remarks about child sexual assault and James and Maryann not having biological children and other insults. And my typical brand of blasphemy?

The sun was still high enough that it bore down on Habit’s head and made sweat gather in the creases of his borrowed body. Piloting a corpse over rough ground was work he would have gladly pushed off to the original owner if they’d been trapped with him, but they weren’t. He was alone, and the fear he’d felt in that initial understanding also had sweat beading on his forehead and joints. Terror had gnawed at him when he’d realized that a shift in power had locked him and him alone into Evan’s familiar form, duplicating it down to the handcuffs rubbing his wrists raw.

Nothing was off about the path he walked on. Neither was anything amiss with the clearing or the house in it. The forest was how you’d assume it would be, packed with life flourishing through its cycles. The only thing setting it apart from when he called the shots was how the light fell to make the negative space glow. The air itself was brighter and hotter, and the wounds on his wrists smarted as more sweat slid under the cuffs.

There was a certain charm to the place. He could admit that. Those who hadn’t been cursed to wander through the forest for eternity would probably enjoy it. Anyone not on the losing side would want into the house. They guarded it like that was the case.

In daylight, someone was always out front, and they swapped out like they were mimicking a guard rotation. Jeff stepping outside to tap Evan on the shoulder and take his place on a bench they’d set up, the doctor relieving Jeff, an occasional gap, and then the house would spit out another. Anyone from the people he’d tormented the most over the centuries to ones that’d flared and burned out in a single go around. He had no idea how many people were in there.

Out of everyone he’d seen, he’d spoken to Elizabeth first, shocked into it by her presence, shouting incredulously, “How big is that fucking house?”

“You’d know,” she yelled back. “Want to come in and see how it’s changed?”

He hadn’t. If they wanted to pay him back, they could track him down the hard way.

He disappeared into the fallen leaves beyond the treeline and resolved to find the boundary of the woods and tear a way out.

The next person he’d spoken to was Vinny, who’d spotted him skulking through the barren trunks. He’d interrupted Habit’s search for better luck on a different side of the forest by standing at the edge of the stairs and flagging him down. Vinny had opened his mouth then closed it quick, looking Habit up and down and asking, “Sure you don’t want to come in?”

“So your dad can shoot me?”

Vinny stared at the ground and twisted his mouth and drummed his feet against the floorboards for long seconds before saying, “We all hurt each other. They forgave me, and they want to forgive you.”

Habit scoffed. “Are you serious? You were practically a boy scout. What were your sins? Lying? Getting drugged up and running away? What did you do that was so hard to forgive?”

“Maybe everything to do with _him?_ ”

Habit rolled his eyes and shrugged the best he could with bound wrists. “Yeah, well, who wouldn’t want to keep him around if they were getting diddled by a priest.”

“Please don’t.”

He growled and clenched his fists, exhausted by everything about this situation. He’d trudged through wind and snow and ice and hadn’t found anything except endless acres of trees. Now in snow up to his ankles, he was shooting the shit with one of the people he’d tortured while being given the option to turn himself in.

His continued existence was a joke he couldn’t laugh at anymore, and he didn’t know what he was becoming that he chose not to say something worse to Vinny just because he could. And he could. He knew Vinny’s buttons better than anyone they could pull out of the clown car they called a house. 

But he was tired and pissed, and he still pushed, “Are you letting the kiddie fucker in the house? All of them?”

Vinny snapped his head up, startled, like he hadn’t even considered the possibility. “I haven’t seen any of them.”

“Why do you think I’m here, but they aren’t?”

“I don’t know.” Vinny deflated, looking at the horizon like he wasn’t seeing what was in front of him. “I don’t know how this works. Like, Alex is inside, but Ellie isn’t.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t have time—that was all he had—but he didn’t want to spend it taking attendance. “Shouldn’t _you_ know what’s going on?”

“I didn’t set the rules.”

What this dimension lacked in answers or exits, it made up for with shrubs and cryptic bullshit in spades. “Seems like you’ve got a fucking mess on your hands,” Habit said, setting out again, trying to head off the inevitable repeat of their offer. “Can’t say I’d want that for myself.”

Vinny called out to Habit’s back, “We’re ready for you, though, if you ever want to try.”

The next time they’d asked, he’d made a miscalculation, of distance, direction, or both, and passed close enough for the doctor to catch sight of him. Leaning heavily on the porch railing, he’d shouted, “Hey! Sorry for shooting you in the face!”

Rage spilled over him, from his scraggly hair to the filth caked on his shoes. They had him chained, trapped and disoriented, and they were taunting him on top of it. He wanted that house to come crashing down in the mud for no other reason than the doctor’s insults sounding so goddamn sincere it made him sick.

Habit trampled a patch of daffodils to get closer to the old buffoon and his moldering house, spitting, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

The doctor made a face halfway between affronted and concerned. “You forgot?”

“No, I didn’t forget. What the fuck are you talking about? Why are you sorry for shooting me?” Habit didn’t let him answer, lashing out in a heartbeat. “Is Jeff coming to apologize for my split knuckles? Does he feel bad I had to wrap my hands in chains to get the job done?”

The doctor’s glasses had slid down his nose, and he stared at Habit over the tops of his lenses. “I can’t imagine he would.”

“Then why waste your breath?”

“Because I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to shoot anyone, including you.”

If he’d had the ability, he would’ve had every branch in the forest embedded in the doctor’s self-righteous face, but Habit’s words were the only weapon he had left, and even then he felt unarmed facing this man. He was ashamed of himself that all he could summon was a pathetic, “I’m not Evan, _you goddamned dolt._ ”

His target brushed the outburst away like it was nothing, like Habit was just another rowdy child. “That’s why I needed to say it, especially so if you’re thinking about joining us. Will you come in?”

He yelled a hearty, “Fuck off,” but the doctor only shrugged, and Habit was forced to limply walk away, ground too slick to stomp, wandering until the ground dried and cracked, and the grass yellowed, until he had nowhere else to run. 

Habit had paced around the house, wracking his brain and watching the idiots parade in and out. Jeff stood there and stared him down with unerring accuracy until Alex banged the door open and rapped his knuckles into Jeff’s head. Steph sat at the picnic table with Evan draped over her, cheek pressed into her shoulder and peeking at an open book in her hands. Neither paid him any mind until they made to leave, waving before turning their backs to him. He took one more shot at finding a hole, any kind of doorway out of here.

Yet again, he was empty-handed and stumbling back to the only constant he had, sweat pouring off him after days walking to an unseen edge and back. And yet again, he was tripping over his own feet, caught out in front of whichever high and mighty motherfucker wanted to waste their infinite time on him.

The old woman was the one sitting on the steps as the house appeared in front of him, closer than he’d ever risked before. She tilted her head to see around the baby standing in her lap and had the nerve to look pleased at who had turned up. “Hello there. Is it today?”

Time moved strange here, even before the restoration was complete. Habit didn’t know how it functioned, and anyone—any _thing_ —that did wasn’t telling. The baby was older than he’d seen her last, older and fuller and drained of her fear. But the doctor’s wife had hair that was more brown than gray, looking insufferably radiant in front of her home.

“What a stupid thing to ask.”

“Obviously, I mean are you coming home?”

He stayed silent, seething at her gall. Coming _home?_

Paying no mind to his anger, she said, “Maybe if we set a deadline? You know, on the count of three?”

She began to count _one-two-three_ to the baby, and he said, infuriated at her naivete, “I’m not your kid.”

“But you could be family.”

The statement was ridiculous to the point of overwhelming, even for him who thrived on the absurd and lived to expose it. He loved twisting people around themselves and making a mockery of them. Taking those who thought they were reasonable and upright and forcing them to face the ugliest parts of the world, asking them who they thought they were after the experience. He was the one kicking over rocks and demanding the slugs look at themselves in the sun.

But they’d pulled _him_ into the light and were watching him wriggle.

“So how about it?” she asked, unconcerned. “Try again three days from now?”

Like with her husband, he could only spit tacks at her, needle her, and hope something would stick. “I’m real sick of this _come home_ bullshit. Are you that desperate for another kid? Gotta beg for more because you couldn’t pop one out yourself? How many times do I have to hear it? It’s pathetic.”

She gave him a dry look around the wobbling, squirming infant. “I’ll repeat it until you realize no matter what you say, you’re the only one keeping you out.”

Annoyed beyond reason, he took another stride forward, shaking his wrists at her. “You want to act merciful, but I’m still locked up. You talk a big game, but it’s the same crock of shit I’ve listened to for a year.”

She smirked. “You forged that chain yourself. Link and link, and yard by yard. You girded it on of your own free will, and of your own free—”

“Yeah, you’re real fucking funny.”

The baby lost her balance and began to cry, flopping into Maryann’s lap and gathering tiny fistfuls of her blouse and yanking.

Maryann abruptly turned her head, calling, “Steph? Ev?” but the distraction was short-lived. Again she scolded him, “You can’t possibly want to keep on like you’ve been.”

“How? How exactly have I been?”

“Roaming around the forest only to end up here. Aren’t you tired?”

Before he could answer, or even decide that he should acknowledge the question, Evan pushed the door open. The real Evan. Up close and meeting his mother on the steps. Weight filling out his shirt, not underfed and dwarfed in dirty clothes. With trimmed hair and bright eyes and unbound hands to accept the baby from her. 

Evan made a shocked grunt as she set the girl in his hands, freezing, and for a moment, letting the baby dangle by her armpits before snapping out of it and bringing her close. 

Habit stilled himself, shocked to realize just how close he was. Maybe ten feet away from the structure itself, definitely close enough to be considered on their land. Close enough that Evan stood there stroking the girl’s hair, asking unbelieving, “Today?”

“We’re having a lively discussion about it.” Maryann reached up, touching Evan’s forearm. “It wouldn’t hurt to mention this to Dad, so he can have an extra plate ready. In case.”

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, stunned, and carried his burden inside.

Once Evan had the squalling thing gone, Maryann addressed Habit again, “So, aren’t you sick of doing the same things over?”

“Why should I be?”

He’d hit Vinny—stabbed Jeff—for less than the look she gave him. “Nothing can stay the same. I don’t have to tell you even the forest goes through seasons.”

“You don’t know anything. I’ve been the same since the start.” He stomped closer, leaning into her space. “I’m not some feral beast to tame. I am chaos incarnate. I am wickedness _itself._ ”

She scowled and didn’t budge. “Is that what you are? Because—”

“You thick bitch, don’t you—”

“ _Because_ I decided if I could find one thing someone did that served good, they should have a place in this world.”

For all he knew, she had that call now, and he wondered if he’d blink out of existence at her say so. She need only bend the ear of a god and _poof_ , there he went. For once, Habit felt the crushing fear that mortals felt. A death sentence hung before him.

But if they could exorcise him for good, they didn’t need to preface it with a lecture. Or a homily.

“All my kids are still having a hard time,” she explained, “but Vinny’s doing the worst, and it’s hard to remember the last time I actually saw him relax. But—but, God, it’s been ages ago; Steph asked me to hand her paint, the titanium white, and he started laughing.”

She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, grinning behind her hand. “What is the deal with Bob Ross exactly?”

Habit had done a lot to keep Vinny complacent. 

Kept him content, then ran him scared. Kept him helpless, then fed him false confidence to spur him into action. They spent days in front of the TV staving off Vinny’s impending breakdowns, and they’d watched countless hours of painting, it being the most soothing, distanced-from-reality program Habit had access to. That, and Habit found it funny to mimic that placid cow’s aphorisms to the point that he _and_ Vinny would joke about _happy accidents_ happening around the homes he’d stuffed them into for safekeeping.

He gave no reply, and she only smiled. “Well, however it went, my son spends his days justifying his suffering until it makes him sick, but somehow, remembering you made him happy. For a second, I saw him relax, and I don’t care that I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find something for you. I can still work with that.”

Her question had almost made him nostalgic for the days he’d spent with Vin, molding him into the exact piece Habit required, and this woman was trying to pull the same stunt. He hissed, “You think you can change me?”

“I’d think you’d want to try something different. The whole world is new, and you don’t have to do the same thing forever.” She was getting aggravated, her tone turning sharper, “A name only has the power you give it.”

Panting, she pulled back and clenched her hands into fists. “I’m saying, if you put in the work, we’re ready whenever you are.”

“What if I can’t come inside? What if I can’t even put my foot on the porch?”

“Then I was wrong,” she ground out. “You were right, and we were wrong, and nothing’s changed. All of James and Vinny’s hand-wringing over things that are filthy was legitimate. Existence is meaningless, and it’s pointless to try.”

“So you just want me to prove your theories right or wrong? It doesn’t matter to you if I live or die?”

“Is dead worse than chained up and alone? Walking away for months only to walk back?”

He jabbed a finger at her. “You just want me gone for good.”

Her voice began to crack, and she put her face in her hands. “Do you think we don’t have a bed made for you? When we say, _come home_ , we don’t mean we’ll make room for you. There _is_ room for you.”

Habit stood up straight, eyes shifting side to side as though the cameras were back and he was the one being made a fool. “Are you really not joking?”

“What the—? No!” She moved her hands, pressing her palms into her temples. “You think we’ve been joking?”

“Why? Why could you possibly want this?” He tried to spread his hands in confusion and succeeded in rattling his bonds.

“Why not? _It’s_ not here. There’s nothing left to strive for, no more power plays. I don’t think anything left _can_ die. Why not!”

There was a creak behind her, and Habit lifted his eyes from Maryann’s red face to the doorway, packed full with a crowd watching them. Maryann turned her head to see, following what he’d focused on, and only marginally lowering her voice, said, “You all need to find something else to do right now.”

She didn’t wait for them to comply; she stood and jerked the key from her pocket, brandishing it at him as she stepped off the tread of the stair. Feet in the dirt, she prompted, “Yes? No? Maybe?”

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s not an answer.”

For all their talk of letting him in, they weren’t stupid. He could see her shaking; the doctor was front and center in the doorway, hand on the latch.

“What’s gonna happen if I hurt you? The cuffs come off. I snap your neck. What’s he gonna do?”

She stared him down, arms crossed with the key held between her fingers. “I’m not going to stand here and threaten you. If you don’t want to be here, then leave.”

He asked, eyes still on the door, “What are you gonna do if I run?”

“Be disappointed.”

She fiddled with the key in her hand, chewing on her lip, until he held his hands out, then she almost dropped it in her rush to bring it down to his wrists. “Really?”

He hadn’t wanted to answer her questions, didn’t want her to know how much she really had over him, but he was tired in every sense of the word. This body was tired and sore and wanting. And powerless. The entirety of him was powerless. He’d exhausted every other avenue he thought he had. Was there anything left except to submit to whatever fate they wanted to dole out?

“…fuck it,” he said. “Do it.”

Hands trembling, she guided the key into the lock. One chunk of metal dropped from his wrist, and she looked up, hesitating.

He stood still and let her undo the other cuff, the whole thing dropping with a clatter.

She backed away, jumpy and retreating. “It’s your choice,” she soothed, stopping with a couple stairs distance between them. “One dinner, one night, a week, a lifetime. However you want to start.”

His wounds burned in the open air, and he rubbed them, unsure of the plan here, but whatever said plan was— “This is a fucking terrible idea.”

Still, Habit inched forward, pressing the tip of his shoe to the edge of the stair, and when he didn’t burst into flames, he put his whole foot down and stepped up.

There was no flash of light or puff of smoke from him popping out of existence. No new pain or stunning revelation or change washed over him. He remained in Evan’s sweating, duplicated body, wrists still red and raw.

She’d pressed her hand again to her mouth at some point, had to move it to get the words to come out unmuffled. “We’ve got nothing but time to make it right.”

He took one more look at the treeline bathed in twilight and turned away, climbing to stand even with her, waiting for hint at what they expected him to do.

The doctor pushed the door open and held it there as the hand previously over her mouth stretched out, hovering briefly before letting the tips of her fingers graze his shoulder, suggesting he turn to the doorway. Again, she smiled and asked, “Shall we reintroduce you?”


End file.
